Over the past decade or so, Lincoln have been promoted from non-league, played in the FA Cup quarter-finals and made numerous trips to Wembley where they won their first trophy. Yet Saturday’s game is considered the biggest in the club’s 65-year history.

The Imps are second in League Two and host third-placed Bolton Wanderers at Sincil Bank. A win would put the team nine points ahead of the chasers for the automatic promotion places.

If that happens, there’s certainly a long way to go – with 15 games remaining – but it will send fans into dreamland looking forward to a first appearance in the second tier since 1961. For head coach Michael Skubala, however, there was a need to remain calm.

“Whenever a big team comes to the city and both sides are second or third, it always feels like it’s a bigger game,” Skubala told sky sports. “But, for me, we just do what we do, we just try to get those next three points.

“There are 48 points left in this league and we’ve done nothing.

“The beauty and the difficulty of football is that it changes very quickly. So we just have to focus on the next game, which is worth the same three points as last week.

“Of course, it’s an exciting game and there will be a lot of spectators, so the atmosphere will be great. But it will all be worth it for me.”

Still, there’s good reason to believe Lincoln can cross the line. The Imps are on a 13-match unbeaten run in Division One, which is known as one of the most challenging divisions due to its sheer competitiveness.

It’s been nearly three months since Lincoln last lost a league game, but this unbeaten run has seen them move from outside the play-off places into automatic promotion.

Skubala’s side struggled to maintain consistency in October and November – so what has changed?

“We wanted to play fast,” the Lincoln coach said. “We are a team that strikes first and is aggressive.

“Sometimes it takes time for players to understand how to do it the way we want to do it – and they develop over time.

“That’s the nature of coaching. Sometimes you just have to wait for things to develop, which is great. Then the lads need to perform, which they’ve done brilliantly over the last few months.”

Over the past few years, Lincoln fans have had to deal with heartbreak across the league. Five years ago, they needed another hour to advance to the Championship via the play-offs, but lost to Blackpool.

They missed out on the last-day play-offs at the end of Skubala’s first term at the club two seasons ago.

After finishing 11th last season, some questioned whether the club could ever come so close to the title again, especially with teams in the bottom six or seven in terms of budget. But we learned our lesson.

“We obviously have good depth already in our lineup this year,” Skubala said. “The strategy in the summer was we didn’t want to go into December and January without enough bodies because we thought that hurt us last year.

“We’ve managed to avoid that with a little bit of luck, but also with depth. Now we’re in a really good position going into the end of the season.”

But one thing they held on to last season was the threat from set pieces. Lincoln were the third-best team in dead-ball situations last season and have scored 19 goals this season, a trend that continues. They are once again top of the division’s First Division and fourth in England’s top four tiers.

A lot of work has been done on how they can use AI data to become set-piece expertsSkubala first studied the technical advantages while at Leeds United, but gained a respect for the dead ball when he worked in England’s futsal coaching establishment.

“People may not understand, but set pieces are also an important part of the futsal game,” said Skubala, who coaches West Ham United defender Max Kilman on the national team.

But the problem with being a “set-piece football club” – a style of play that involves long-range passing and physical contact in the penalty area – is that it can occasionally attract vitriolic comments.

For example, after the recent 2-2 draw, Luton manager Jack Wilshere quipped that Skubala’s Lincoln “only care about getting the ball into the box”.

“I love putting the ball in the box!” Skubala said when those quotes were passed to him. “If I can put more balls in the box, I’m going to put more balls in the box! It hurts the team.

“I think that’s a very fair comment because that’s what we want to do and what we want to do. If I could put more balls in the box, 100 box entries, I’d take that.”

Lincoln are more than just a “set-piece club” anyway – if they were just that, they wouldn’t be in the position they are in now.

“I’ve had enough gray hair,” Skubala said. “I’ve been in the game long enough to understand that there are some basic principles that can’t be abandoned. If they are, it doesn’t matter.

“Set-pieces are never unimportant. They’ve always been important. It’s just how you get players there now and how you coach them, it might be slightly different.

“The ball, the green and the two goals never moved and it was 11 on 11, so they stayed the same.”

If Lincoln can achieve a generational championship dream, their supporters won’t care how they got there.

The city is buzzing with activity as the season draws to a close and, with the weight of history weighing on them, Skubala knows the fans will be rooting for the team heading into this big game against Bolton Wanderers.

“Lincoln fans are amazing,” he said. “It’s not just about this game, I think there’s a lot of football energy in the city and it really gets behind the team and gets behind the lads. That’s what you want.

“As a coach, my job is sometimes to be a conduit between the fans, the players and the club. I think there is a real connection between the city and the players.”